Andrea Tornielli has a piece today at Sacri Palazzi wherein he calls into question the veracity of Scalfari’s account of the interview with Pope Francis.

I don’t have time to translate the whole thing for you at the moment, since I am off to lunch and then to the firing range for some therapy.

However, Tornielli points out that more than one cardinal told him that Francis did not go apart into a room before he accepted the election as Pope during the conclave. That’s just one point.

However, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, the papal spokesman, responded to a question from journalists, saying: “It isn’t clear to me that the text of the interview with the Pope on La Repubblica was revised.”

Tornielli goes on to write:

“Lombardi didn’t deny any passage in the conversation, and he explained that the overall reconstruction of the papal affirmations was faithful. But [NB…] he made it clear that it is necessary to be cautious in attributing with precision to the Pope every single quoted word.”

Is that so?

Then I have to ask: If we aren’t sure about the exact words of the Pope:

Why the hell is the interview posted on the Vatican’s website in the category of “Speeches” of Pope Francis?!?

If this is the case, and this is not some vague damage control to appease the scandalized, (And I would dearly like it to be the case), then certainly the Vatican machine continues to blunder it’s way to its own detriment.

No more interviews for the secular press. They are dogs! Put them on a leash in the yard and feed them with carefully prepared meals with the vitamins and supplements they hate but need.

It is not proselytism that is nonsese, it is ‘dialoguing’ with the devil! Besides wasn’t the whole point of ‘dialogue’ for the purpose of conversion? But if conversions are not the intention, then isn’t VII’s call for dialogue and openness a form of proselytism? I don’t know where up and down and left and right are anymore…

Elaine, I agree “…don’t tell him that.” Because, being a butcher requires skill (gotta know about the various cuts) and judgment (or you loose a finger)….my best ‘spin’ on Pope Francis is that he is a naive amateur – unfortunately – playing in a very highly professional game.

Clearly there are serious problems with Papal and Vatican communications. This is a serious situation and needs to be addressed. It is causing his position to be undermined and he is not helping matters by providing so ready a store of off the cuff and ill-considered remarks.

Perhaps he is being undermined. Perhaps not. The press are certainly having a field day, but the honeymoon won’t last forever. The “People’s Pope,” as I am told he is known, needs fully to realise the weight and dignity of his office and all that entails. It is not for nothing that world leaders generally keep their silence and only speak occasionally and in measured tones. His predecessors, especially Benedict, provide more than suitable examples of this.

It would be far better to migrate to something like WordPress or Drupal, since they’re so easy to manage that work could be distributed to a far greater extent, and some cardinals themselves can provide content. These content managers have built in moderation, so reviews of content generation can still happen centrally but the actual work of generating content need not be. This would definitely fix the embarrassingly slow updates (e.g. Summorum Pontificum was only available in Hungarian for the longest time), and allow for the Pope’s vision of decentralizing some Vatican functions without losing control.

I agree with Dr. Peters 100%. The Vatican website needs to meet the 21st century.

I also think if the Holy Father wants to do interviews, let him explain and defend what he means. Many Catholic bloggers are trying to explain/ defend what he meant to say, or what he is really saying. I know a lot of VERY frustrated people. He wants to do interviews, that’s fine, he’s the Pope, he can do what he wants. I don’t really give a flying banana what everyone thinks he wants to say, I want to know what he means by it all.

iPadre says: “I also think if the Holy Father wants to do interviews, let him explain and defend what he means.”

Great idea! Even if he gave an interview that could be taken the wrong way, having the interview in-house would allow him to annotate the interview with footnotes and cross references to other speeches and the Catechism (to add the needed nuance that he wouldn’t be able to give in an interview).

Stranger things have happened, such as the greatest persecutor of the early Church becoming a great saint and writer of most the the Epistles in the New Testament, and Genghis Khan turning back at Rome.

Using something like WordPress, including all its editing features and plugins is small potatoes. Every parish I visit seems to use WordPress for their parish website, and I would be surprised if none of the G8 run their dioceses with something similar.

Here’s a bright idea: if Francis is big on having conversations in public, why don’t we just ask him if he meant what the English translations of the other side of the conversation’s account of the conversation seems to say? For every interview he gives, let the five best Spanish-speakers among Fr. Z’s readers each pick one quote from a friend, family member or aquaintance about how the Pope has given them license to ignore Church teaching and one quote from a newspaper that suggests the Pope is a heretic (I mean a quote from a newspaper that is for it, so it can’t be dismissed as “obsessed with the small-minded rules” or whatever), find the relevant portion of the interview that they cited or that seems like it may agree with them and translate the English translation into Spanish so His Holiness can see how it sounds that way, and ask if that’s really what he meant. If the Pope doesn’t clarify his statements, he’ll just keep getting these inquiries till he starts making clearer statements in the first place.

I mean, this isn’t new. People were on here talking about how stuff Benedict said led their non-Catholic friends to say “Your Pope loves me as I am, why do I need to become Catholic?” It’s starting to get a little boring sitting here just reacting, isn’t it?

Anil wand wrote: “Using something like WordPress, including all its editing features and plugins is small potatoes. Every parish I visit seems to use WordPress for their parish website, and I would be surprised if none of the G8 run their dioceses with something similar.”

Honestly, I think things are out of control at the Vatican. As for Fr. Lombardi, I’ve never been impressed. Now you have a Jesuit spokesman trying to cover for a Jesuit Pope. The word “Jesuitical” has never been more appropriate.

Clearly, the Pope needs someone to bounce off the things he says to an orthodox theologian as well as someone with a clue who understands how the press and the common man will interpret what he has said. Are you available, Fr. Z?

Germain Grisez: “I’m afraid that Pope Francis has failed to consider carefully enough the likely consequences of letting loose with his thoughts in a world that will applaud being provided with such help in subverting the truth it is his job to guard as inviolable and proclaim with fidelity. For a long time he has been thinking these things. Now he can say them to the whole world — and he is self-indulgent enough to take advantage of the opportunity with as little care as he might unburden himself with friends after a good dinner and plenty of wine.”

Not to mention his implication about the kind of spirit that was inspiring Pope Francis.

I think people with influence in the Church need to keep a lid on comments like this. Constructive criticism of the Holy Father is one thing. Descending to the level of, “Well, what you said was confusing so I question the spirit that is influencing you, it certainly is not the Holy Spirit” teeters towards rash.

How on earth does Grisez know what “spirit” was influencing the Holy Father? We are peeling back the layers of two foreign languages plus questionable interviewers (in both instances, to different degrees) and CERTAINLY questionable editors.

I would say Pope Francis is impulsive and at times imprudent. Given his position, those are qualities he should address in himself. They are not helpful in a Pope. Still, that’s a far cry from self-indulgent and influenced by evil spirits.

@ Luisa, In this town ,if you want to know anything you ask the butcher. Mamajen yes double face palm. Traductora , Valls?!!,Realy? RomeontheRange,and all you gunners , A bow and arrow and a hay bale really does wonders at steadying the nerves. GAK tough and shrewd yes, nut no,but I’ve bonded to him now you see,because others have been misquoting and misrepresenting me for years. I test people on this occasionally in phone conversations ,I will actually be reading from the Catechism or an encyclical or such and they will still get me wrong when relaying my thoughts to others. Sorry for being so chatty tonight ,I’m going back to read that clerical bedtime story again, it made me happy and gave me peace.

It has been said that events and developments happen in the Church very, very slowly. Maddeningly slowly. Approvals to open the process for a proposed Servant of God may take years, even decades. Approbation for apparitions may require decades, possibly centuries. The Church is famous for slow. We are the original ents.

Well, I’ve decided to take just such an approach – an ent-like approach to the very substantial array of remarks with which the Holy Father has been pleased to bless us. Since there are so many of them, in different contexts, originally in a language other than English, and appearing in print in translations which may or may not be altogether reliable, I have decided it’s probably best to let the dust settle on these informal remarks, and meanwhile devote myself to prayer, study of Sacred Scripture and the writings of the Doctors, and to good works. And if the Holy Father the Pope has said anything which I ought to pay especial attention to, then I hope my Guardian angel will direct me to a reliably translated source, which I will read and prayerfully consider in an ent-like manner.

I agree with GAK. I’d feel much more at ease with the off the cuff remarks if Pope Francis would start excommunicating the heretics. Actions speak louder than words. I think I’ve said before that I had this feeling that he was disarming the libs with his chatty pastoral self, while his actions have been encouraging, including the march for life, Gyn. meeting speech, excommunicating dissident priest, St. Michael dedication…

Rouxfus, you made me laugh. Especially since I have been reading some Belloc lately, including his Heresy. Really it is a wonder, nay a miracle that the Church survives at all.

I realized last night that I am guilty of a lack of the virtue of Hope. I do not know what God intends for us in this current crisis that the Church is going through. I know that my faith in Him is the issue now as always.

Really my friends, we are allowing every event to disturb our peace and to make us anxious.

Marion has the right of it. We need more prayer and study and prayer and penance and prayer.

RobW, I can easily see the evil results of a generation of unemployed, disenfranchised youth. I pray and hope that some of them could discern a call to vocations.

The ongoing of chaos and confusion in the progressive ‘catholic church’. Thank you, I will stay with the Holy Roman Catholic Church and the F.S.S.P.X. There I find truth,clarity and hope for my immortal soul.

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